Toyota Urban Cruiser Teased; Festive Season Launch Confirmed

News Highlights

• The Urban Cruiser is the second vehicle to emerge from Maruti-Toyota partnership
• Toyota Urban Cruiser will be locally developed at the company's Bidadi facility

Toyota India has officially announced its entry in the sub-compact SUV segment with the all-new Urban Cruiser in the country. Under the Toyota-Maruti partnership in March 2018, the Vitara Brezza will be sold under the name of 'Urban Cruiser' by the Toyota brand, identical to the Glanza hatchback which is essentially a Maruti Baleno, save for the Toyota badging. Toyota Urban Cruiser will be launched during the festive season around September-October in the Indian market. The Japanese automaker has released a teaser image of the upcoming sub 4-meter SUV.

Commenting on the foray into the compact SUV segment, Mr. Naveen Soni, Senior Vice President, Sales and Services, TKM, said, “We are very excited to announce our plans to launch the Toyota Urban Cruiser this festive season. With a customer-first approach, TKM has always endeavoured to fulfil the aspirations of its customers with timely introduction of new products and the Toyota Urban Cruiser is another such effort to satisfy the evolving customer needs.

Toyota has already sold over 25,000 units of Glanza which was the first product to be exchanged between the two companies under the partnership. It is being learnt that Toyota will carry out a few subtle styling updates to the Urban Cruiser in order to distinguish it from the Vitara Brezza, unlike the Glanza which is a carbon copy of Baleno. The interior is expected to be retained from Maruti's popular SUV with almost all the features including the 7-inch SmartPlay Studio touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Under the bonnet, it will have the same BS6 compliant 1.5L K15 petrol engine which develops 103bhp and 138Nm while paired to a 5-speed manual gearbox as standard and a 4-speed torque converter automatic transmission as optional.